Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
Posted: 07/25/2010 08:06:37 PM PDT

SAN BERNARDINO – The move to amend the City Charter can be viewed as a debate over how to run the city – or just another smackdown between leaders who cannot get along.

The proposal to change the charter would give the City Council, with the mayor’s consent, power to appoint the city attorney, city clerk and city treasurer.

Those officers are currently chosen by voters.

Mayor Pat Morris supports the proposed changes, and City Attorney James F. Penman is opposed. The two men have spent much of the past five years on the opposite sides of political campaigns or challenging each other’s policies.

Morris has defeated Penman in two mayoral campaigns. He won the 2005-06 contest in a runoff vote and went on to
win the 2009 vote by a large enough margin to preclude any need for an extra ballot.

For his part, Penman claimed his current term in 2007 when he defeated a Morris-backed opponent.

Thus, neither official’s political maneuvering has been adroit enough to force the other into private life. The rivalry between Morris and Penman has already colored perceptions of the proposal.

“This is just nothing more than animosity, bitterness and rivalry wrapped up together,” 5th Ward Councilman Chas Kelley said.

To Kelley, all the talk about charter reform translates to nothing more than another game of power politics – except this time Penman’s opponents want to change the rules instead of waiting for the 2011 election.

“Run a candidate and defeat him. Plain and simple,” he said.

Those on the opposite side of the issue have specifically criticized Penman’s job performance.

For example, 3rd Ward Councilman Tobin Brinker said during a June 30 meeting that he thinks the outspoken city attorney’s legal opinions are compromised by politics.

But in an interview Friday, Morris asserted that the issue is not Penman’s way of being city attorney but the way the office is structured.

“If there’s anything the electorate demands from our cities, it’s a modern, efficient government,” Morris said.

The way to get that efficiency, Morris says, is to depoliticize the offices of city attorney, city clerk and city treasurer and make whoever holds those positions answerable to the full council.

“We’ve got too many cooks in the kitchen. The question is, `Who’s in charge here?”‘ Morris said.

Supporters of charter change often say San Bernardino has more elected officials than the much larger city of Los Angeles.

That is accurate if one counts the number of elected executive positions. San Bernardino voters get to hire four city executives, whereas Los Angeles voters choose three: their mayor, city attorney and city controller.

Los Angeles has 15 council members, giving the metropolis more overall elected officials than San Bernardino, which has seven council members.

Penman’s answer to the mayor’s question of “Who’s in charge?” is to say that San Bernardino voters will not give up their power to elect officials.

“It’s pretty much up to the voters. The voters have always rejected it,” he said.

One of Penman’s anecdotes is to say that during an earlier move to change the charter, a voter told him “I don’t like you, why would I give up my right to vote you out?”

The last time San Bernardino voters decided that they wanted to continue electing their city attorney was in 2000, when nearly two-thirds of those who cast ballots voted against Measure M.

Measure M was a wide-ranging attempt to change the City Charter that went well beyond how San Bernardino’s city attorney is chosen.

This year’s discussions on charter change also have gone beyond which city officers should be elected or appointed.

Other ideas, put forward during a March retreat, include giving the city manager authority to manage semi-autonomous organizations such as the San Bernardino Economic Development Agency, the Water Department and Library Department.

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